Odilon Redon (April 20, 1840 - July 6, 1916) was a Symbolist painter and printmaker, born in Bordeaux, Aquitaine, France. Redon began to study drawing in 1855 with Stanislas Gorin in Bordeaux. At his father's wish Redon started to study architecture in 1860. Four years later he was accepted in the painting class of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He exhibited some prints in the Salon of 1867.Redon remained relatively unknown until the appearance in 1884 of a cult novel by Joris-Karl Huysmans titled: "A Rebours" (Against Nature). The story featured a decadent aristocrat who collected Redon's drawings.

Redon also describes his work as ambiguous and undefinable:"My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined."